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Monday, May 25, 2009

Hypertufa

Today we decided to try something new; make our own garden planter. Based on a "recipe" we found on the web we tried our hand at making a hypertufa pot. This is our first attempt with hypertufa and given the curing times required we won't know if it all worked out for about a week.

Hypertufa is made of 3 parts peat moss, 3 parts perlite and 2 parts Portland cement. This combination makes for light weight garden accessories that can be crafted to just about any shape and size.

The key to hypertufa is to thoroughly mix all the dry ingredients prior to adding water. We also added a concrete dye (in powder form) to give our planter a brownish hue. Once the ingredients are mixed simply add and mix in water. You want to do this little by little because you don't want the mixture to be too wet. A proper hypertufa mixture has been described as "cottage cheese like".

Once the cottage cheese consistency has been achieved, it is time to adhere the hypertufa recipe to your mold. Our mold consisted of an old plastic plant pot. The kind that store bought plants come in. We covered the plastic pot with a plastic bag and sprayed the bag with WD-40. This is supposed to make removing the finished pot from the mold easier. The WD-40 can be replaced with any oily substance including motor oil and vegetable oil. The WD-40 simply seemed cleaner to us. It is important to build up the hypertufa around the mold to 1 1/2 to 2 inches. We tried to build the hypertufa to 2" around the entire mold. Once complete, we covered our project in plastic to protect it from the elements.

According to the directions we found the hypertufa pot should be ready in one to two weeks.

Since we have never done a project like this before we have no idea what to expect. We will provide an update - stay tuned.

Below are pictures from today's project plus a YouTube video that we used to assist us. Enjoy!

1 comment:

Yesterday, I was talking with a couple who told me about a class that will be taught on learning how to make Hypertufa. I had seen items made with Hypertufa but I've never attempted. Now, I'm excited and want to learn. I can't wait to try!